Haiyu writes in, and I apologize if I butchered your name, Hey, Jeff, I have about three weeks out until my first exam ever for BEC. I'm freaking out on how I should be studying. I purchased the Ninja course for BEC about a week ago, and I also have Becker, however, the Becker videos are too lengthy and note-taking is too time-consuming.

I have written notes the Cornell Method way and all of the chapters for Becker already, but I've not had the time to review them because they are too lengthy and I'm horrible at note-taking. I have yet to finish even four out of six of the MCQs that they provided. I wanna know what is the best study strategy I can take along with the Ninja MCQs on my upcoming test.

I've been using Ninja MCQs to review and so far everything on the corporate governance I knew pretty well, but all of the other chapters, I'm guessing on problems that require a lot of critical thinking and calculations. With so many CPA Review materials to use, I don't know how to approach a study strategy that should be efficient and effective. What would be the best approach for me to passing the BEC within three weeks?

Okay, if you find yourself getting bogged down, taking just crazy notes, because if you're like a typical accountant you get OCD and everything's gotta be perfect because when you're doin' books and auditing, you have to be professional. But on the exam, there's something about good enough.

And so you have to be good enough with your note-taking, and if you are getting too far into the weeds on your notes, just take notes at a higher level. And if you're horrible at note-taking, just punt taking notes and just rewrite the Ninja notes. And if you're working Ninja MCQ and you're like, I have no idea what I'm doing here, I'm scoring in the 40s. That's okay. It just means that you have, in theory, you would've learned the concepts by reading the Ninja book or you have Becker, going through the Becker lectures, but you can only absorb so much material and you can only spend so much time on the concepts.

The real work is done in the trenches, in the MCQ. And so you need to, if you miss a question in the MCQ, whatever the little fact nugget is, the Ninja nugget, write it down. So you're three weeks out from your exam and it's about time to start rewriting your Ninja notes. And if you spend the next two weeks getting through the MCQ, then you're going to have one week for review. I guess you could do that, but typically three weeks out, you want to spend a week rewriting your notes, then two weeks reviewing.

I guess if it comes down to it, so this is April. You still have May and through early June to take your exam. It's okay to bump it back two weeks if you have to. Get through your MCQ, so maybe you have to reschedule, Get through your MCQ, rewrite your notes, and then do your final review. Don't overdo it on the note-taking. Remember, you can rewrite the Ninja notes and that's good enough.